


Weeping at the Grave of Mnemosyne

by ExtraPenguin



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/pseuds/ExtraPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon Illyan wakes up without his chip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weeping at the Grave of Mnemosyne

They said it was over.

_What? What was over?_

He could live his life without constant flashbacks to the past.

_What past?_

Voices. Lights. The smell of ozone.

Slowly, reluctantly, his memory dredged up the syllables _ImpMil_ , fighting every step of the way, like a machine left unused for ages.

_like an unused machine_

He tried to recall what had happened, and drew a blank. Panic. Again, the abandoned machine slowly rising to the task. Flawed, patchy, unreliable. Like a ground-car left in a parking lot, oil unchanged for years, motor not cleaned for decades. Years, decades of disuse, and the machine ground to a halt. Atrophied.

A remembered sense of confusion. Vague recollections of people, time collapsing into nothing, leaving ages fuzzy. A short, wide man, built like a mountain troll, simultaneously forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. A beautiful lady seen in time-lapse, starting in her twenties, ending in her fifties. The time-lapse flowed backwards. A small man of indeterminate age. The man as a child.

_Memories._

He couldn't remember what had happened to any of them over the course of their lifetimes. Were they alive?

_could not remember_

Who were they?

_important_

All people had names. What were these people's names?

Blanks.

The room became a collection of solid blocks of color, free of shade and shine. The colors swirled in abstract patterns, changing themselves: yellow to white to blue to purple...

_Eadem mutata resurgo._

The colors had danced to white, black, and red. They coalesced into a face. Cetaganda. Knowledge shyly dripped into his mind. The Occupation. Interstellar games of cat and mouse.

He had an inkling of the man's name, was joyed that he'd remembered a name, was frustrated that he had no idea why he'd remember this name.

A story came unbidden, ran away when he tried to catch it. The wisps he could grasp brought forth memories. _I must have a word with Miles on not charging out without consulting me when the outcome might affect Barrayar._

Miles? Miles. A unit of measurement. His thoughts had been running in circles for miles.

Miles. Miles, Miles, Miles. _Uncle Simon._ Miles Vorkosigan.

_Oh._

Names came, snaps of memory, incomplete, incomplete, not to be trusted, chip, what's wrong with you?

Chip?

_I know I was angry at you yesterday, I've hated you ever since you were installed, I'm sorry, please don't go. Chip? Where are you?_

Memories. Memories that did not deserve the name. Memories that were as fuzzy as dreams, fading at the edges as soon as they formed, fraying with every remembrance.

_Mnemosyne, please help me. Take me from the domain of your daughter Melpomene and into your arms. Oh, Mnemosyne!_

Eadem mutata resurgo.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Now.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881644) by [salable_mystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic)




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